That morning, in a secluded corner, Ed secretly used the Teleportation Tree to reassemble himself and appeared before Duolin, the White Wax Town Adventurers' Guild. To avoid attracting the attention of the players, Ed put on a hooded robe that he hadn't worn in a long time, hiding his face in the shadows.
When the visitor removed his hood, revealing his signature white hair, one eye, and a lush, half-crowned sapling, Duolin nearly sprang from his chair.
" My Son of God, what brings you here?"
Ed looked around, casually found a place to sit in Duolin's office, and spoke in a similarly casual tone:
"Just think of this as a clandestine investigation. You're one of my few reliable confidants, and I need to know if you're actually putting your heart into your work."
"You are free to look at any of the documents here. I have put my heart into everything I do."
Duolin spoke with great confidence, and Ed knew that he hadn't been slacking off at all. After all, he could not only speak inside Duolin's head, but also see everything around him through his eyes.
However, such supervision is not a long-term solution. Ed's brainpower and Little Green's computing power are also limited. Maintaining the stable operation of the Root Network will consume a portion of them, so it is sometimes difficult to be all-encompassing.
As his power expanded, he also needed to let his subordinates know the Second Holy See's emphasis on work ability and the character of its members. Otherwise, without a monitoring system in place, some bad things could easily breed and slowly corrupt the Second Holy See to a state no different from the current Tree Worship Church.
This is not what Ed wants to see, so he needs to start with Duolin and gradually take the atmosphere of the entire Tree Worship Church Cult's indigenous leadership seriously.
He looked at Duolin and said with a smile:
"I'll check later, but I'm mainly here today to see your work environment. After all, it's been quite a while since we last saw each other since the church was captured."
Duolin's expression turned even more surprised upon hearing this. Although Ed would hold online meetings with him in his mind every now and then, the two of them had indeed not seen each other for about two months.
Upon learning that the Son of God still cared about him, Duolin was almost moved to tears.
Yes, that's the expression. Ed forced a smile, which finally formed a half-smile on his face.
" Weeping Willow Town will soon be ours. At that time, the Soul Returner [ Zhongde ] and Tailun will select uncorrupted priests from there. Those priests will be temporarily placed under your command. You need to teach them basic administrative skills, and then appoint a suitable person as the new mayor or bishop. This is the only way to ensure the stable integration of the new territory."
Upon hearing Ed's account, Duolin showed neither worry about the increased workload nor joy at the impending increase in manpower; instead, he displayed extraordinary excitement at the very first sentence:
"You mean the plan in Weeping Willow Town is about to succeed?"
Ed nodded:
"By dawn, I had received the news that the Soul Returner ' plan was progressing very smoothly, and the Blood Corpse outside had withdrawn. Having witnessed the horrors of the Blood Corpse, the civilians were already terrified, and the victory had greatly boosted their morale. They are now working hard to fortify the city's defenses. If nothing unexpected happens, the Blood Corpse will change their target today. If they do not continue their attack on Weeping Willow Town tonight, then by this time tomorrow, that fallen bishop of Weeping Willow Town will be hanging on the city wall."
Duolin was overjoyed:
"Great! This way we can rescue another group of townspeople and children."
"That's right, so the situation in Weeping Willow Town is practically a done deal now. As for this place..."
Duolin immediately stood up and straightened his back:
"Please rest assured, I will personally confront that vampire count in the upcoming battle and will not allow him to set foot in White Wax Town."
Ed shook his head:
"No need. There's still a lot for you to do; professionals will handle it."
"A professional? You mean Xilǐ'er?"
After a moment 'Duolin, Dorin quickly found the most experienced "person" in the entire Second Holy See in dealing with Blood Corpse.
"Not only that, there's also the ' Gungnir ' he just mastered."
Ed smiled and stood up, placing a small model of the World Tree on Duolin's desk:
"This is my new creation. If you really want to have a fight, you can try activating it before the battle. Of course, there is a certain possibility of failure."
After saying that, Ed waved his hand to decline Duolin's offer to stay, pulled up his hood, and disappeared from the Adventurers' Guild.
Weeping Willow Town, outside the city.
"Inspector, all the Blood Corpse corpses are here."
A fallen priest who had survived by sheer luck had just finished his arduous work and turned to look at the unfriendly inspector, Tailun, above the city wall.
"Sir, is there anything else you require?"
Meeting the other's piercing gaze, the fallen priest inadvertently shivered and asked Tailun with a fawning expression.
It's no wonder he adopted such a humble posture; it's simply because he kept feeling a chill on the back of his neck.
After a night of fighting, the local priests of Weeping Willow Town suffered heavy casualties. He was lucky enough to survive and was then assigned the job of beheading people.
This was to prevent the deceased priests from being infected and mutated into Blood Corpse. Although most of their bodies were already severely damaged, and cutting off the heads of their comrades would be somewhat of an insult to their corpses, and even if they became Blood Corpse, they wouldn't have much fighting power, under the inspector's orders, he reluctantly picked up the knife and began to "shave" the heads of his colleagues who had been lively and energetic just a few hours earlier.
But while shaving the corpse's head, he discovered a very serious problem—
It seems like all the dead are my actual colleagues.
In the true sense, "colleagues" naturally refers to the Stained Ones ( Fallen One ). Although everyone in the church appears to be friendly on the surface, in private, the Stained Ones is a synonym for a small clique.
After all, they share the same secret, so it's normal for them to get closer.
Those familiar faces completely overshadowed the few people who had been doing experiments with him just a few days ago; the others belonged to several other teams of Stained Ones.
After considering all the various possibilities, the priest couldn't think of any other Stained Ones alive besides himself!
That's not right. His Holiness the Bishop had clearly hinted before that the Inspector was also Stained Ones and shouldn't be targeting his true colleagues like this.
If it was a coincidence, then why didn't any of those stubborn guys who refused to join them die?
Do such coincidences really exist in the world?